Finding
Adi Da > Paul Muller-Ortega
Four Luminously Amazing Days
Professor
Paul Muller-Ortega Ph.D. is recognized internationally
as one of the world’s most highly respected and renowned
academic scholars in the field of Indian Religion and Hindu
Tantra. He is the founder of Blue Throat Yoga which teaches
the Svatantra philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism along with
the practice of Neelakantha Meditation. For more than forty
years, Paul has been a pioneer in the technology of Consciousness,
lecturing and teaching about meditation and Indian philosophy
to hundreds of thousands of people in North and South America,
Europe, and India. He is the author of The Triadic Heart
of Shiva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta on the Non-Dual
Shaivism of Kashmir, as well as numerous scholarly articles
on aspects of Tantric Studies. He wrote the Foreword to
Adi Da's book, The
Gnosticon. This story is taken from that Foreword.
A traditional conch sounds repeatedly in the misty chill
air of a January afternoon. A large number of people have
assembled in the various halls of The Mountain Of Attention
Sanctuary. Today, Adi Da Samraj is giving Darshan. For about
an hour prior to his arrival, we have been sitting in the
vibrant silence of a large formal room. Now, at the sound
of the conch, a contained, anticipatory excitement surges
through the hall.
Then, suddenly, he is just there. Without particular ceremony,
Adi Da Samraj enters with a fierce intensity of purpose.
Dressed in renunciatory orange, with his long hair pulled
back, he seems by his demeanor to be both somber and ecstatic.
With a swift and graceful economy of movement, he dispenses
with his outer coat and cane, and takes his seat at the
front of the hall. Instantly, there arises an inchoate stirring,
a spontaneous murmur of love.
As the Darshan proceeds, this murmur will gather shape
into a crescendo of recognitional exclamation and praise.
Then, the formalities of the Darshan occasion get under
way as his principal devotees come forward to pranam before
him and to offer gifts of love and gestures of deep devotion
directly at his feet.
In January 2006, during four luminously amazing days, it
was my privilege to encounter the Avataric Master, Adi Da
Samraj, in person for the first time. I felt extremely fortunate
to be invited to visit one of his spiritually-empowered
sanctuaries, The Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary in northern
California, at a time when he was there. I had read about
this place for many years and thus had a certain familiarity
with the many sacred events that had there transpired.
During the previous year, by some mysterious arrangement
of destiny, I had found myself involved in a sequence of
written communications with Adi Da Samraj. This exchange
had then resulted in a graceful invitation to visit. Thus,
after more than thirty years of reading the books of Adi
Da Samraj, I was now amazed to find myself in this room
with him. I have to confess that at that moment my heart
was pounding. Seated in the midst of his lifelong devotees,
I feel myself overwhelmed by the extremely strong impact
of Adi Da Samraj's physical presence.
My racing mind muses that I am finally in the presence
of what the medieval Shaiva scriptures of Kashmir call a
"samsiddhika," or spontaneously self-perfected master. Said
to be spontaneously initiated by the very powers of his
own consciousness, such a rare, perfected master spontaneously
achieves a profound understanding of and insight into the
deepest meanings of all scriptures and all religions. And
this, it is said, without undergoing any explicit outer
initiation or instruction into those specific traditions.
As I sit and watch this ancient scene of an adept-realizer
gracefully receiving his disciples, here enacted in a totally
modern setting, I strongly sense that I am in the presence
of such a rare being.
Adi Da Samraj is now silently, very deliberately and slowly,
sweeping the room with his astonishing eyes. Like the play
of evershifting light in a forest meadow, an ever-shifting
range of complex and unreadable emotions appears to cross
his face. He looks with an almost unbearable intensity and
for many prolonged minutes at each person in the room.
As I meet his gaze, a flurry of sensations and emotions
rise through me. Then, it is my turn to approach him directly
in order to pranam at his feet. Through this devotional
gesture, I feel deeply grateful finally to be able to express
what I have long inwardly intuited: an ancient bond of connection
to him. Then, beyond all such feelings, my awkward and unpracticed
bow at his feet suddenly seems completely irrelevant as
my gaze is pulled utterly within and above to a sublime
space of love.
Later, as Adi Da Samraj prepares to leave the hall, he
stands up from his chair. However, instead of immediately
departing, he now stands leaning on his cane for many prolonged
minutes as he again silently sweeps the room with his eyes.
This time it is as if the lights in the entire room have
been turned up to an almost blinding degree of intensity.
With considerable and growing awe, I palpably sense an emanating
wave moving out from his body, a wave that forcefully ripples
outward through the entire hall. As it does, this wave of
his beneficent and now magnified and intensified blessing
force catches directly at the heart; it strongly moves the
mind; and it powerfully lifts the spirit.
The room suddenly erupts with the sounds, reactions, and
spontaneous acknowledgements of this silent but unmistakable
event. During many prolonged moments, shouts and cries,
moans and whispers of devotional response can be heard as
if to echo the passage of this energy into and through each
person there present. As if the "motor" of spirit has been
mysteriously accelerated, this subtle and yet completely
tangible vibration of consciousness offers the gift of a
descending and blessing encompassment of spirit. As it does,
something deep and truly mysterious and awesome is felt.
During the entire hour that Adi Da Samraj has been present
with us, he has not spoken a single word. And yet the most
powerful and important communication of all has taken place.
* * *
I end with an enflamed sentence drawn from my journal
in which I wrote last year: